Philip Johnson’s first constructed commissionthe Booth House now for sale.

"When we visited the homes of friends, we felt closed in and unaccountably claustrophobic. Our home’s Breuer tables, Eames chairs, and the open plan made everything feel light and airy. The layout and floor-height sills seemed to form a continuum with the surrounding landscape. Their homes felt smaller without the immediacy of sun and sky throughout the seasons.

In the weeks before my father’s death last year, our family sat before the huge crackling fireplace and listened to John Coltrane as the panorama of the misty woods began to bud, smells of coffee and pancakes emanating from the kitchen. We didn’t need to think or talk. It was more than sufficient to just sit together, our house another companion.

But now we need to think. And to act.

Our mother is eighty-six. She has projects that need an urban location: the publication of my father’s book, the disposition of his archive, the production of a film about him. She needs our help, and we live in Boston.

We are obligated to dispose of the house. And this obligation has taken us into its history anew, and almost shockingly made us aware of the significance and value it enjoys beyond its taken for- granted identity as our cherished home. Owning a Philip Johnson house is indeed special, but owning his first commissioned work means also owning the progenitor of its kind.

Philip Johnson’s first constructed commission, the Booth House built in 1946. Also, the first Bauhaus inspired home built in the New York northern metropolitan area, preceding Philip Johnson’s own memorable Glass House and the many mid-century modern homes built in New Canaan, CT. The spare elegance of the home represents the brief moment in America’s post-war history when a simple, informal, unencumbered domesticity became fashionable.

Philip Johnson’s architecture of the period was inspired by Mies van der Rohe. The Miesian hallmark is evident in the reductive rectilinear design with minimal interruption in the flow of space within the building and out to the exterior landscape. In the Booth House, twenty-eight feet of floor to ceiling glass on one side of the living room commands an expansive view across acres of woodlands. The panorama includes a thirty-six acre nature preserve. The 2320 square foot 3 bedroom home and 800 square foot studio building has been the home of two architects for 55 years.

David John is co-founder of DISC Interiors in Los Angeles. This is his personal journal, a collection of conversations with friends, makers, and artists, as well as his photographs. You Have Been Here Sometime. Feel free to contact:david ( at ) discinteriors.com